The Grunt
by The Other Side of Darkness
Summary: In which a nameless grunt gets a name during the storyline events of Bleach. Original zanpakuto and abilities, no canon character as a romantic interest, highly inaccurate according to the storyline because I really only have a vague idea of how it goes.


I do not own Bleach

Chapter One: Nameless Grunt Gets A Name

A tall young man sat in his room, idly drawing on a blank piece of paper. It was a face, feminine in appearance, and it was not coming out very well.

"Argh! Damn it! I can't draw for shit!" He stabbed his pen through the current drawing and stuck it into the table.

At about that time the door to his room slid open and another man, somewhat shorter than the first, stood there.

"Ozell," The other man began, "you are assigned to unit six. Your shift begins immediately."

The other man left and Ozell stood with a yawn. He grabbed a nondescript short sword, an arm band with the mark of eleven on it, and a black bucket hat before leaving his room.

He met up with eight other guys from the eleventh squad to begin a patrol through the Rukongai. He looked over the faces of the others and sighed. It seem they were sending the nobodies out and away from the ryoka situation to make sure they didn't get under foot.

Indeed the whole bunch of them, Ozell included, had been of no particular note from before they entered the shinigami academy until now. Ozell in particular was one that, if you discounted the bucket hat, was your average shinigami. He had not even attained Shikai in the six years he'd been out of the academy.

Not for lack of ability to do so. Ozell had been talking with his Zanpakuto, Dark Dragon he'd been told by the spirit of the sword, since just before graduation. It appeared to him as a man wearing white robes and a hood that obscured his entire face. The only other definitive feature that could be made out from underneath the robes was a long, seven feet at least, scaley, black tail.

As it stood Ozell had not yet even activated his Shikai in private. He didn't want any of the extra paperwork involved in the higher ranking positions. The spirit of his zanpakuto didn't particularly mind.

If Ozell was perfecty honest he had joined the academy because he had heard about the incredible fights that happened all the time. So far nothing extraordinary had happened. Yeah, he'd gotten into a few brawls. Yeah, anyone with any amount of spiritual sense could feel the auras of the thirteen captains and their lieutenants. Yeah, his own captain was a total badass.

But he'd yet to see anything remotely like what the recruiter had bragged about.

And then, just when something different was about to happen, they send the grunts out to Rukongai to patrol.

Ozell looked to the comander of the unit and simply nodded to him. After a few minutes of going over the course through the outer districts they'd be following they were off.

Half way to the gate Ozell's unit stopped and watched as other shinigami, mostly fellows from their squad, got stomped by a kid with orange hair. Almost immediately the guys he was with jumped into the fight.

Watching the orange haired kid destroy the other squad eleven shinigami, Ozell grinned.

"Hey," the kid called out to Ozell, "Are you gonna fight or what?"

Ozell nodded and drew his shortsword, "Yeah, but I'm not gonna win."

The kid looked confused as he held his huge Zanpakuto before him, "If you know you're gonna lose then why are you gonna fight?"

"Because..." the tall young man took off his bucket hat and placed it inside his haori for safe keeping, "Every once in a while..." he took a stance that anyone would see in one of the old B-movies that had Samurai, "You need to get your ass kicked."

He lunged at the orange haired kid.

Like he predicted, Ozell got his ass kicked. He didn't spring some kind of never before seen sword style, or activate his Shikai, or even bust out a super awesome spell of ultimate destruction. He simply got his ass kicked and there was no way at all around it.

As Ozell sat there against the nearby wall, bleeding from several deep cuts, sword stabbed into the ground in front of him, eyes half lidded, and lips slightly upturned, he was found by his taichou and fukutaichou.

"Hey, you!" Zaraki pointed at him, "Which way did the ryoka go?"

"He went that way, Captain," he nodded his head toward the center of the Seiretei.

"Yeah, see I told you, Kenny," Yachiru, hanging off the big man's shoulder, said loudly.

Kenpachi looked in the direction Ozell indicated and turned back to his underling, "I owe you a fight for this. Don't die before you cash in, kid." With that he took off toward the orange haired kid.

Not too long after that the lieutenant of the fourth squad found him and the thirty or so other eleventh squad members who'd been beaten by the teen.

Only an hour or so later he was being questioned by the captain of the first squad, Yamamoto.

"What is your name?"

"Ozell Vissillius Serres," Ozell, stood before the head captain in white clothing, his left arm in a sling, and his bucket had clutched in his right hand.

"I was told you were the only combatant still conscious after encountering one of the Ryoka. Tell me about the one you faced," He demanded.

"His name is Kurosaki Ichigo. He said he was here to save Kuchiki Rukia. He is strong, but unrefined. He appears to have only recently taken up the sword, but has had some hand to hand training. His reiki is... overpowering. It is comparable to captain Zaraki, though on a lesser scale. He seems determined to free miss Kuchiki even if it kills him, sir," Ozell spoke calmly and in a monotone.

"Are you capable of Shikai?"

Ozell grimaced somewhat, "Kind of, sir."

"Explain."

"I know the name of my sword, sir, but have not yet released it."

"And why did you not use it against this Kurosaki?"

"As I said, I've never released it before, sir. Only a fool goes into a fight with a power he only knows by name. If I had released my Shikai in that fight it would've made it only that much easier for Kurosaki to defeat me as I went through the trial and error of figuring out what new power I had."

"How long have you known the name of your sword?"

Ozell sighed and looked down, "A little over six years, sir."

Genryusai did not appear at all amused by this, "Are you telling me that, for six years, you have known the name of your Zanpakuto, but not once, not even for the sake of experimentation, have you released it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Explain."

"I do not like paperwork," he said with surprising conviction, "sir."

Ozell felt Genryusai's spiritual pressure fluctuate slightly at that. The man did not comment anymore, he simply turned and left.

Ozell put his hat on and sat down on the hospital bed, "I think I made him mad."

"You almost made him laugh, actually," a new voice said. The young man nearly jumped out of his skin before he turned to see the captain of the seventh squad, Kyoraku Shinsui, pink robe and all.

"Hello, Captain Kyoraku," Ozell bowed.

"Eh? No need for that," Shinsui waved away his attempt at formality, "You just looked like you need to be reassured that you wouldn't be joining the Kuchiki girl at the Soukyouku."

Ozell nodded, before sitting down on the bed again and grasped his sword in his right hand.

"Is it true that you didn't release your Shikai to avoid paperwork?" Shinsui asked.

The young man nodded again, his rust red hair swaying slightly with the motion.

Shinsui laughed, "Sounds like something I would do," he turned to leave, but threw over his shoulder, "If you ever get tired of the eleventh division, you have a standing invitation to my squad."

Ozell turned his head to the side in curiosity as he thought about Shinsui's offer. In the end he decided that, while it was nice to know he'd be welcome among another squad, he belonged in squad eleven.

And he was about to prove it.

The rust haired young man made sure his bucket hat was on tight before grabbing his sword and moving to the window. He set his sword in the sash of his robes, opened the window, and very carefully climbed out of the room he was being kept in for treatment.

Just outside the window he immediately crouched low to avoid being seen through any of the other windows by attending doctors or nurses. It was unfortunate that Unohana had delt with squad eleven members before. To be truthful it was mostly eleveners that ended up needing treatment. So much so that they had their own wing of the hospital.

And guard detail.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

Ozell froze. He knew that voice. He knew that tone. The tone of impending doom. It belonged to the one person he feared above all others.

"Er, uh, Hi, sweety!" His girlfriend.

Candace Eileen Symphonette was not like her boyfriend. In the academy she retained a solid position in the upper percentile of all her classes. Her Hakuda classes in particular were where she excelled. After graduation she received an invitation to the sixth squad under captain Kuchiki Byakuya. She quickly rose through the ranks to attain the position of ninth seat and retained that position consistently for the last fifteen years.

The story of how they got together is similar to the current situation.

Ozell had just woken up from the initiation brawl all new recruits went through in the eleventh division. It was the most fun he'd had since leaving the Rukongai. He decided to sneak out and get back to his squad and see if they had things like that planned often.

But, as previously mentioned, captain Unohana had far too many dealings in the past with eleveners and had hired a squad of sixers to guard their wing.

When Ozell found his way blocked by a girl with long black hair, grey blue eyes that reminded him of a wolf on the prowl, and a frown mixed with a superior sneer, he thought only one thing.

_She's cute_.

It was then, when Ozell's surprise tactic of kicking her in the shin, knocking her sword to the side with his right arm's cast, and then using his crutch to knock her on her back let him get past her that she became interested in him.

She found him some weeks later in a cross of patrols through the Rukongai where she introduced herself and asked his name. They crossed paths a third time in the fourth squad hospital. Ozell was able to make it past her again with a stray remark about her breast size being perfect. In her moment of confused distraction he ended up knocking her on her ass again. The fourth time they met she demanded reparation for his comment about her breasts so he offered to treat her to dinner. From there it rolled up quite quickly into a relationship.

Ozell also learned that she had gone easy on him because he was injured. In their first formal spar Ozell had been beaten so bad it was a surprize he hadn't ended up in the hospital again. It did start him on the proper path of learning shunpo though. To this day he hadn't quite nailed it, but he was getting ever closer.

"Get back in your room," it wasn't a scream, a shout, or an overly forceful demand. It was the tone of 'Do-It-Or-Face-Celibacy!'

"Ehm, I was just... getting some fresh air?"

"You got your air, get back in the room," the same tone.

Ozell hung his head in defeat, before a thought came to him, "If I go back right now will you do me two favors?"

"Maybe," she had changed her tone slightly and now had a raised eyebrow, "What are they and why?"

"Well, for one, would you come back with me? I haven't seen you in a while," That was true, she'd been on assignment for the last week.

"And?"

"I need your help to train with my Shikai."

"What? You said you hadn't-"

"And I haven't. Not yet anyways. But I know it's name," He grinned, "I just haven't released it and it would help if I had a sparring partner."

Candace stared at him impassively for a couple of moments, her reiki pulsing ominously. Ozell busted out his secret technique.

"I'll let you wear my hat."

It was a game to them. His hat was a souvenir he had picked up in the living world. He loved it only slightly less than he loved Candace, and when she saw it she felt the same. Now Ozell, at first, had no idea why she didn't just go get her own, but many a time she would steal the hat from him and the chase would be on. It usually ended in a rather compromising situation that neither really minded and had rather quickly endeared the game to them.

Candace's lips twitched upward at the corners and she held out her hand. Ozell took off his hat and handed it to her. She immediately put it on and stopped pulsing her reiki. He grinned and stood to his full height of six foot four and held out his arm for her to take.

"To the pent house, my lady?"

"Onward, Jeeves," she said with a smile as she hooked her arm with his.

+--- Later

"Now summon your reiki tightly to your body," Candace instructed Ozell.

It was the day after his release from the hospital, only two since he was injured, and he had been eager to get to training with his shikai.

Ozell pulled in his reiki as instructed, holding his sword before him. The blade began to hum and visible energy began to coalesce around the metal, dark grey in color.

"Now call out the name of your sword while channeling al of the gathered energy into the hilt."

Ozell took a deep breath, pushed the reiki into the hilt, and said, "Roar that shreds the unknown! _**Dark Dragon!!**_" There was a small explosion of reiki as Ozell's reserves doubled with the release of his shikai. Candace blocked her face with her arm to stop the small bit of wind from bothering her eyes.

When the storm of spirtual energy died down the sword had changed. It had gone from a nondescript shortsword to what looked like a huge chunk of black rock. It was about four feet long, five inches thick, and a foot wide. It's handle was in a ring of the black rock at one end and wrapped in bandages. It had two spikes, red in color, that were each about six inches. The first pointed towards the tip, also colored red. The second was pointed back towards his hand. It looked like it weighed a ton, but Ozell hardly felt a thing.

Two other changes, not to the sword, but to its weilder, were gloves and a mask. The gloves were black and made of some kind of strange alloy, each finger tipped with a razor sharp point, blood red in color. The mask was made of the same alloy. It covered his face from the bridge of his nose to mid neck, and had been carved into a roaring dragon's mouth.

"Oh, this is so cool!" Ozell exclaimed, "Dark, you are awesome!" The zanpakuto hummed in pride at the praise. The figure of the Dark Dragon in Ozell's subconscious began to whisper to his weilder the secret of his powers.

"What does it do?" Candace asked, admiring the appearance. It looked like it was simply a bludgeoning weapon, but soul slayers were hardly ever that simple.

"Dark says tha-" he paused and turned his ear upwards as if trying to hear better, "Dark says that his powers are cutting and sound. He says when I master his abilities in this form there will be nothing I can not cut."

"What about the sound part?"

Ozell grinned at his girlfriend and held out the huge chunk of alloy to one side, "That I can show you now. You're gonna want to cover your ears." Grey reiki began to cover the enirety of the sword's strange form.

Candace stood back a little more and covered her ears.

"_**Unari no Arano!!**_" Ozell swung the sword forward with everything he had. A swirlling grey vortex, a roar coming from it that shook the entire area, and a fifteen foot wide path of destruction that went on until it hit the reiki resistant walls of the training area, about fifty feet from where Ozell stood.

"Roar of the Wasteland?" Candace questioned.

Ozell nodded, "It looks powerful, but it's not really all that. Another shinigami or even a hollow could lessen the damage by simply flooding the area with reiki. Dark Dragon's true focus, like I said, is cutting."

Ozell walked over to some training posts and held the Dark dragon over his head. In three quick swings he struck each post. At first no damge appeared then as one the three posts split in twain vertically and fell.

"How in the hell does it cut at all, the edges are thicker than a hilt and dull?" Candace was now closely examing her boyfriend's shikai poking the flat surface every now and again to feel its texture.

"I dunno, Dark doesn't get it either, it's just what he does," Ozell shrugged then smirked behind his mask, "Ready for a spar?"

+---

There was an explosion at the Soukyoku. Not long before that there was another one in the forest to one side, and a dome of fire was in front of the thing.

By the time Candace and Ozell showed up the former fifth division captain, who was previously thought dead was tearing apart the shinigami there. The couple were dumbfounded.

Then he turned on them, the unkind gleam in his eyes taking away the peace in his smile.

"This is not a place for weaklings."

He appeared before Candace and activated a kidou that Ozell had never seen before. The end result was the ninth seat falling to the ground in a pool of her own blood. She did not appear to be breathing, her grey blue eyes were unseeing, and her wounds were numerous enough to assume that she was dead.

Ozell, stunned beyond movement, didn't yet understand what had happened. It took another comment from the demented shinigami for him to even begin to act.

"Too bad. She was quite pleasing to the eyes."

"C-candace?"

Ozell rushed the short distance to her side and checked her for any signs of life. He could not find them. He tried again. And again. And again and again and again.

"Candace! Candace, wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up! C'mon baby, wake up," tears began to leak out of his eyes, "CANDACE!!"

"Oh? Were you romantically involved? How... interesting," Aizen held no real care for the reaction of the shinigami before him. He was entirely too weak to provide him sport even.

"You killed Candace..." Ozell slowly stood up. Staring blanky he unsheathed his zanpakuto.

"That is a useless move, boy," Aizen began, still wearing that damnable smile, "If you leave now you might survive."

"You killed Candace..." he repeated a little louder.

"Yes, I think we've covered that," Aizen briefly wondered why exactly he was humoring this weakling.

"You. Killed. Candace." Ozell's reiki began to flare.

"You are beginning to annoy me, boy," Aizen prepared to kill the annoyance.

"Roar that tears the unknown," the words that were now familiar to him were said in an unfeeling monotone, "Dark Dragon." The appearance of his short sword changed into the rock like appearance that his shikai was. His hands had the alloy gloves. His face had the mask with the roaring appearance.

"Mmm? I've never seen a zanpakuto quite like that. Maybe I'll play with you for a little while and see just what you can-"

"Unari no Arano."

Aizen dodged to the side of the roaring vortex of destruction and whistled slightly at the results of the attack. He turned in time to see the incoming strike from the massive rock like zanpakuto and held out a hand to block it.

"Kireme Hyakuji," the reiki around the weapon became denser. When it made contact with Aizen's palm it was halted, almost completely. It was rather surprising that the blunt weapon made a nice little cut across Aizen's palm. Aizen acknowledged that this might be something worth researching.

Ozell couldn't have known what the excaptain was thinking. To be honest, he wasn't thinking anything. His mind was gone far far away. The only sign he was even still capable of feeling anything were the tears constantly leaking out of his unblinking eyes.

"Unari no Arano," He launched the attack at point blank range. Aizen however slipped around it easily. He shunshined infront of the young man and put his arm forward.

"Kurohitsuji." A large black box that was the symbol of this destructive spell rose up around the unseated evelenth squad member. Just as the spell was about to kill the shinigami he heard words from within.

"Kireme Hyakuji."

The kidou split into two parts, each falling away from the young man without doing any damage. He proceeded to use a primitive form of the shunpo to appear in front of Aizen, his odd weapon held above his head in the ready position.

Tired of toying around with the boy Aizen proceeded to almost flow around the attack, another Roar of the Wasteland, and pushed his fist into the gut of the berzerker. Ozell coughed up blood that leaked out of the front of the mask and he lost consciousness.

From there events proceeded in a way most readers are familiar with up to the point that he summoned the Negacion. He ordered that Gin take the boy. He felt that the boy's ability to cut kidou might be useful.

"If we can refine and harness that ability we may have found the way to kill the King of Soul Society."

+---

After the events at the Soukyoku it was by chance alone that Candace was found by a member of the fourth division, a kid named Hanataro. She was quickly rushed to a hospital after being found to be in a deathlike state.

After two days of treatments and surgeries and blood transplants to fix all the damage done to her, Candace woke up.

Almost imediately she began trying to escape the room she was being held in, screaming for them to let her go, that she had to save Ozell. On the third day she lost her voice. On the fifth day she ripped her stitches again and had to be restrained.

"Let me go! I have to save him! I have to show him I'm here!" She was forcing out, further damgaing her throat and vocal cords, "He thinks I'm dead! Let me go! Let me go!"

+---

End chapter.


End file.
